7 - Chapter 7

This day had been really depressing. Burris tried his best to adapt to everything and put his daily research back on track. In addition, he had to detect and record his physical condition every day to see if there was any improvement in the discordance of his soul.

When things were not going well, Burris would say to himself in the mirror before going to bed and after waking up: You are fine, you are lucky, you have become younger, and you have unlimited possibilities. Now your back is so straight, your hair is so thick, your eyesight is so good, you can do it, you will be all right.

No matter how much he encouraged himself, he couldn’t ignore the troubles in his life. For example, when the tailor, Mr. Justin came, Burris had to cast an illusion to look like an old man before going to see him. After having a face-to-face meeting with Justin, Burris hurriedly left. Anyway, Justin was also used to dealing with the housekeeping golems.

The mage returned to his study and watched from the surveillance crystal the tailor cutting out the garments to fit Roth’s body. Justin never had any extra curiosity. He didn’t ask anything about things that had nothing to do with him. It was Roth. He had been eager to test Justin, implying that he could ask all kinds of questions that interfere with privacy… In the end, the tailor did not ask anything, and Roth was disappointed.

Even more troublesome than meeting the tailor was meeting the apprentices-Burris not only had Estel as apprentice, but other students would occasionally come back to visit him. This time under the tower was an elf named Heisong [1].

Heisong was an adult elf, older than Burris, but Burris always had thought of him as a young boy. This elf loved to dress himself as dark and scary as possible. He hung a bunch of sinister useless accessories on his belt, and he also dyed his beautiful blond hair to black and green, painted his face very white, used cosmetics to draw dark circles under his eyes to increase a sense of emaciation, and some meaningless skull patterns and characters on his hands…Burris always had been worried about the apprentice’s mental and social skills.

When Estel came to visit, she would let a transfixed metal bird fly up to report the news, but Heisong did not do so.

He stopped under the tower, praised the greatness of his mentor in a poetic tone, and then narrated his recent adventure in a cadence. Then, he lighted up clumps of pale skeleton shaped ghosts and made them spiral up and howl around the mage tower…

Burris didn’t want to see him. Heisong was a mature mage anyway; illusion skills may not be able to deceive him and telling him the truth would be even more useless. Heisong was too naive, he couldn’t keep secrets like Estel. If he told him the whole story, he was afraid it would add more energy and jealousy to tell his adventurers friends…His adventurers friends were wandering everywhere around the Confederacy of Ten Nations. It wouldn’t be long before the story of ‘The Skeleton King and the Mage Who Regained Youth’ would be known to all women and children.

At this moment, Burris and Roth sat in the lounge, staring sadly at the surveillance crystal on the table, listening to the ghostly fire whistling outside the tower. Roth thought of an idea: “How about you use your magic to amplify your voice and pretend to be angry to scare him away? Bring out that kind of enraged aura of a legendary archmage!”

“No.” Burris said. “Heisong knows me too well. I’m not a moody person. Doing this would only arouse his suspicion…”

“Then you keep quiet and ignore him, making him think that there is no one in the tower. Anyway, isn’t there a magic lock on your door, he can’t break in.”

“He can’t… but he will probably camp under my tower.”

“Why does he need to see you?”

Burris lamented: “He must have suffered a loss during his adventure. Now he comes back to me for money…And he won’t leave without it.”

Roth patted him on the shoulder, looking serious: “Do you have to pay if he wants money? He has left you and has become a senior adventurer. Besides, he is still an elf, I am afraid he is much older than you, huh? Is he not embarrassed to spend your money? The money is not flying out of thin air, but you squander it freely. Why?”

Burris looked at Roth in embarrassment… Roth had put on his new clothes. In addition to the ones Burris ordered, he had also customized three sets of cloaks, two gem inlaid belts, four different colors of leather inlaid ribbon bow ties, four sets of silk indoor home clothes, three pairs of soft leather boots, two pairs of lambskin gloves… On the wall behind Roth was the harp which nobody can play. On the chest of drawers under the harp, there was a square mirror of pure silver, and bright five-color gems with worrying aesthetics were embedded on the frame…

Burris had mixed feelings. He bowed his head with a bitter face and sighed. Roth gave him a particularly warm look: “It’s all right, don’t worry, there will be a way. You are now 20 years old, not 84 years old! Don’t always slouch your back and sigh!”

Burris nodded perfunctorily. He got up and walked to the cloakroom at the end of the corridor. Roth asked what he was going to do, and he said, “I’ll change my clothes. I just figured out a way. Heisong will not give up easily. I still have to deal with him.”

“So, you still have to give him money?”

“I’ll just give it to him. Heisong and Estel are different. Estel is a researcher, just like me, while Heisong puts things into practice. He and his team of adventurers often travel everywhere, and there will be some unexpected gains occasionally. We need this kind of people to collect new spellcasting materials, explore and excavate unknown relics…This is mostly done by people like them. It’s not easy for Heisong, I have to help him as much as I can.”

Roth followed Burris, staring at him with a smile. For more than sixty years, he had always remembered this sad and gloomy face. However, there was a little difference between the ‘sad face’ in his memory and Burris’s expression now. Now Burris looked too kind, not as heartbreaking as it used to be, and it was even a little bit funny.

Burris changed into a set of brand-new but simple robes and tied his loose hair to the back of his head. This little change made him neater and his temperament really became like the one of a younger person. He took a bag of gold coins and pulled out a gray fluorite pendant from a box that had fallen ashes. Then he took off most of the magic items from his body, leaving only the carnelian ring on his thumb.

After taking the floating disc to the first-floor hall, Burris told Roth: “My Lord, I’ll deal with this matter, you… go back to the room upstairs. I can do it alone”

“Are you afraid that I might say the wrong thing?” Roth nodded very understandingly. “I understand, I understand. Don’t worry, I don’t want to emphasize my own sense of existence. Just deal with him, I will not speak. I’ll pretend to be a servant in your tower.”

“You are too well dressed to look like a servant.”

“Oh…Then what profession dress more gorgeously here?”

Burris wanted to say: I would never dress like this in any profession…Who would be all right in a long cloak of sable fur and dark red flannel? Add a crown and you seem to be going to be enthroned…Suddenly, Burris’ inspiration flashed: “Let’s do it. If he asks, you will say that you are an ally of the mage Burris Gershaw, and then he may ask: ‘Are you a warlock?’ Just say yes. Don’t worry, all detection spells are forbidden in my hall, he won’t find out you are from another world.”

The Skeleton King agreed. Burris walked up to the door, and instead of opening it with a switch like in the past, he opened the bolt in the most basic way.

There was a chair made of bones floating in the open space outside the tower, on which an elf in black robes sat. The door opened, and Heisong was about to get up, but when he found a young and strange face at the door, he sat back in his chair with an elegant posture.

Burris secretly laughed in his heart: This silly elf, you can use the bones of cows and deers as a chair, but these bones are obviously cooked, and there are a few bones on the back of the chair that have even been smoked… Even if you’ve painted them white, I can see it! Can you stop using kitchen waste to make bone chairs? Don’t let this chair be seen by other necromancers. It is enough to make people laugh for a hundred years.

Heisong spoke: “Young human apprentice, I haven’t seen you, so report your name.” When he spoke to outsiders, he always deliberately mimicked the ancient elves. In fact, his daily accent was closer to the northern dialect of the Sago Empire.

“My name is Kreve. [2]” Burris used a familiar name, the name of the tailor Justin’s father-in-law. “Excuse me, are you the necromancer Heisong?”

Half of a pale face appeared under the heavy hood, and a dangerous smile was raised on his blue lips: “Oh? Do you know me?”

“Our mentor told me about you. The opening time of the door is limited. Please come in.”

Heisong nodded, manipulating the bone chair to float into the tower and looked around the familiar hall: “Where is our respected mentor?”

“Our mentor is out, and I don’t know where he went.”

Heisong looked at the ‘young man’ in front of him with dissatisfaction: “You are so young, so, can our mentor rest assured that you can manage his tower?”

“I have this question myself. But the orders of my mentor are orders, and I will abide by them and do my duty.”

It was not difficult to play an apprentice, after all, Burris himself was an apprentice to others when he was young. Back then, his mentor was very harsh, but he always maintained a gentle and submissive attitude. Now he can be regarded as a true character in his youth.

Heisong ignored the ‘apprentice’, and instead chanted a spell to summon a floating disc. In the mage tower, his bone seat cannot take him up. If you want to enter a high-rise room, you have only two choices: floating disc or stairs.

After waiting for a few seconds, the floating disc had been hanging quietly in a high place, completely ignoring Heisong. He knew that this was because of his mentor’s arrangement, so he didn’t try again. He jumped out of his chair and stepped up the stairs. After a few steps, an invisible wall blocked his way.

“Does our mentor not allow me to go up the tower?” Heisong returned to the hall aggrievedly.

Burris maintained a downcast expression: “Our mentor doesn’t allow anyone to go up the tower. I only move around in the various rooms on the ground floor.”

“This is troublesome…”Heisong mumbled and sat back in the bone chair. In fact, there were comfortable sofas for guests to sit in the hall, but he just wanted to sit on his own kitchen garbage chair.

After thinking for a while, the elf stretched out his pale, slender hands with black pointed fingernails: “Little mage, do you have tea? I have come all the way, and now I’m a little thirsty.”

Your mouth is dry because you just recited poems outside the tower. Burris went to the tearoom to serve a refreshing drink that he usually prepared. When he returned, Heisong was not waiting there. He drifted to the side entrance hall and found Roth who was reading a romantic novel.

“Who are you?” Even Heisong could tell that this person was definitely not a mage apprentice.

“Burris Gershaw’s man.”

The hand of Burris holding the drink trembled.

T.N

[1] 黑松 : This really means Black Pine. His name gave me a headache because I hate when someone translates or adapts a name, but in this novel the elves are named like this.

Anyway, let me know what you think in the comments. I think I’m always messing up the names (except Burris and Roth because the printed books have those names in the inside cover) T.T ☹ ☹ ☹

[2] 柯雷夫 This name could be Kreve or Kolev. I’m sorry, I know I’m messing up with the western names, but I found more entries for Kreve than for Kolev.

As always, if you spot a mistake, please tell me.

I hope you are enjoying the story as much as I am. Thank you so much for reading ? ??